Vision Therapy

Brain, Vision, and Learning Center of Pennsylvania at Hazleton AND Stroudsburg Eye Specialists

More than 50% of the brain is dedicated to vision in some way or another. From the most basic of functions like seeing words on a board or in a book clearly and singly all the way to being able to see a 3D movie or hit a baseball vision involves many complex neurological processes.

Vision is more than 20/20. You may see clearly but have trouble with things like:

Focusing

Reading

Looking from far to close

Tracking objects

Attention

Letter reversals

Dizziness

VIsion And Learning

At least 80% of what we learn comes in through the visual system. What’s more, studies have shown that 1 in 5 kids have a vision problem that affects reading and learning. Even if your child has 20/20 vision, there still may be an underlying visual problem affecting their ability to learn.

There are many different aspects of the visual process in addition to clarity of sight. A deficiency in any of these areas may cause a child to struggle to read, learn, retain information, or even move through space accurately.

To see if you or your child may have a learning-related vision problem, please make an appointment with us today for a Vision and Learning examination.

Vision Therapy

What is Vision Therapy?

Vision Therapy (VT for short) helps to build the eye-brain-body connection in patients with binocular vision dysfunction or visual-perceptual challenges.

Who needs VT?

Patients of any age with eye-teaming problems, such as strabismus (eye turn) or amblyopia (“lazy” eye)

Children who struggle with learning, due to delays in visual development (including strabismus, amblyopia, eye movement or focusing disorders, or visual processing delays)

Patients of any age who suffered damage to visual processing ability (head trauma, including concussion or mild traumatic brain injury, stroke or progressive neurological conditions)

Correction – Understand how can we use our eyes in a more efficient manner.

Loading – Utilize these new techniques under pressure: with additional visual, auditory, motor or cognitive processing. For example, reading letters on a chart while moving or to the beat of a metronome.

Application – Apply this new way of using the eyes, brain and body in real life: school, work, athletics, or simply watching a 3D movie.

What steps do I take?

Comprehensive eye examination. If this was recently done at another eye doctor's office, great! Please have them fax the exam information to us for one of our Eye Specialists to examine.

Referral evaluation. We will want to thoroughly review the patient's developmental history and any other pertinent information, such as a symptom review or the pertinent information related to a traumatic event, if indicated. We may repeat some testing that was done in a comprehensive exam, but we will also do further testing of focus, eye movement, and binocular vision function at this evaluation.

Visual Information Processing Evaluation. This one-to-two hour appointment takes an in-depth look at how the eyes, brain and body work together. We will look at many areas of visual perception, visual motor integration, body awareness and bilateral integration, laterality, directionality and primitive reflexes. We review the information from this evaluation and write a detailed report. The parents (or patient, if older) return for a separate consultation where they discuss the results of these tests.

Vision therapy weekly visits. Our VT appointments are scheduled on a weekly basis. They are one-hour office visits, where the first 45 minutes is one-on-one with the therapist, and the last 15 minutes are typically with the parent as well, so we can discuss the results of the therapy visit and prescribe home therapy activities for the week.

Mid-therapy evaluations. We like to provide evaluations after approximately every 4-12 weeks, to make sure we are making good progress in the therapy. Afterwards, we write a detailed report and discuss the results with the patient/parents at the following vision therapy session.

Graduate!! Our goal is to provide new connections in the brain so that our patients have a better ability to use their eyes, brain and body together. When their vision is maximized, we are delighted to see them graduate!

Visual Information Processing Evaluation

Visual perception occurs throughout the brain. In order to better understand a patient’s visual system, a set of standardized tests is used to evaluate her ability to process visual information. Below are the various aspects of vision that may be evaluated. Since vision is a learned process, these areas can be improved through vision therapy.

The following areas may be assessed:

Visualization – the ability to form mental image and manipulate details in one’s mind. This is important in reading comprehension and math.

Visual–Motor Integration – evaluates the ability to match motor output with visual input. It is crucial for handwriting accuracy and efficiency as well as eye-hand coordination in sports.

Visual Sequential Memory – the ability to remember objects or words in the sequence they appear. A deficit in this area may result in misreading words such as ‘saw’ and ‘was.’

Visual Discrimination – the ability to differentiate between two similar looking objects, shapes, or words such as ‘horse’ and ‘house.’

Visual Closure – the ability to have part of the information and infer the rest. This is an important skill in reading speed and math.

Spatial relations – the ability to perceive the position of two or more objects in relation to each other and in relation to oneself. This is an important skill in problem-solving, high-level math, and proper spacing between words when writing a sentence.

Spatial Orientation – required in understanding and recognizing the direction of objects. A deficit in this area lead to letter (b, d, p, q) and number (6 vs. 9) reversals.

Laterality – the understanding of rights and lefts on the patient and in space.

Strabismus / Amblyopia Assessment

Strabismus (eye turn) and Amblyopia (lazy eye) are disorders of binocular vision, resulting in reduced depth perception. To see properly in 3-D, our eyes need to be aiming at the same place at the same time. In addition, the vision in both eyes needs to be approximately the same for proper depth perception.

During this exam, we measure the position of your two eyes as well as the size, frequency, and direction of your eye-turn, if present. A variety of tests using red-green and polarized 3D glasses are used to determine your brain’s ability to fuse (bring together) the images from your two eyes. Further, we measure the flexibility and range of inward (convergence) and outward (divergence) eye-teaming movements which is an important skill when playing sports or copying from the board. Your eyes may also be dilated to determine a more accurate prescription of your eyes and to evaluate your eye health. The results from these testing will let us know what the best treatment options are for you, whether it is prescription glasses or contact lenses, prism lenses, vision therapy and/or eye-muscle surgery.

High Tech Eye movement evaluation and Reading evaluation with RIGHT EYE TECHNOLOGY.

RIGHT EYE is a first of its kind technology which we are proud to be one of the only facilities in the country to have. RIGHT EYE utilizes state of the art eye tracking hardware and a large database of patient normative data to determine if the patient is displaying normal eye movements that are used in learning, sports, and just normal functioning.
This technology is extremely valuable in identifying eye movement disorders, communicating with fellow healthcare professionals and in tracking progress for our vision therapy and vision rehabilitation patients.

By dedicating just a few minutes to taking an EyeQ test you could:

Determine if you or a family member may have indicators for a concussion, autism or Parkinson's

Help your students or children identify what may be causing their reading or learning challenges

Give sports teams and athletes a way to quickly understand how their vision impacts performance on the field and identify ways to improve it